Zorlon Cannon Arrives!

OMG, I love this module!

It's so fun. At first I thought it was going to be kind of kitschy, but the tones that are available are really quite interesting and very unique sounding. It sounds super rad through the Polivoks (who'd a thought, right?!). It's almost not quite enough that you cannot have all 8 different possible tones simultaneously. It's really fun to pick 4 and cycle through them with a sequential switch, clocked from the CLK OUT on the Gates half of the Zorlon.

The psuedo random gates are very fun too; mixing all 4 together with some kind of bi-polar mixer (A-138c) to make a pseudo random pitch sequence for the pitch input of the noise generator is too much fun, and the clock output allows you to clock other modules (like your EGs, or the aforementioned sequential switch) to it.

I know what you're thinking...clips or it never happened...I'll get them soon enough. For now, settle for the pic.

[UPDATE]
Here's a nice demo patch I made last night, but was too lazy to record (that's why the picture above still has cables patched in). The Zorlon Cannon is of course the main sound source, the 4 outputs (4bit-switch down, 5bit and 9bit-switch up, 17bit-switch down) are going to a Doepfer A-151 Sequential Switch, the output of which goes to a Harvestman Polivoks modulated by a Dual Cyclotron and A-143-1, and finally through have of a Plan B M13 low pass gate, opened by an M10 EG. The Pitch for the Zorlon noise outputs comes from the Zorlon's pseudo random gates, being mixed by a Doepfer A-138c bipolar mixer. The Clock Out on the Zorlon is triggering the M10, whose End Of Cycle output triggers the A-151 sequential switch.

So basically what you are hearing is the pseudo random gates generating the pitch sequence, the various noise outputs being "selected" by the sequential switch, and finally filtered by the Polivoks and made "plucky" by the M13 + M10.



Enjoy.

Official Member of the Monster Case Club

This case is too rad! It's the perfect width, perfect height, and
fits just about perfectly on my desk.

Unfortunately, I seem to have run out of screws, so I wasn't able to
mount all my modules, the Malgorithm and A-188-2 BBD being two stand
outs. However, I'm pretty sure the Eurorack screws are just M35
screws, which can easily be obtained from the hardware store.

On thing thing that I'm also short on is patch cables! :D. It's been a
while since I have been able to cook up a large patch, and I had a
pretty good one going here, until I ran out of cables.

The Tyme Sefari is super fun, and a fantastic performance module. It
feels very natural to "play" rather than "patch-up", but that just
might be my personal preference. I may have to move I out of that
corner, but that seems the most logical place for it, towards the end
of the signal path. All that playing with the TS got me thinking
about a Harvestman only performance system again!

The Plan B M17 module is fun too, and actually much more useful for my
kind of patches than I realized. I like to have certain events
trigger other events, so I generally really like modules that have
trigger outs, particularly ones that occur at the end of some stage
(like the M24, M10, A-143-1 and -2). What the M17 basically does is
add trigger outs for other modules that don't have any such feature.
A perfect example would be an EG where you wanted a trigger or gate at
the end of the attack phase. That's easily handled with 1/3 of the
M17. The NOT outputs for gates/triggers is also extremely useful for
trigger other events when the rest of the M17 is not triggering
anything.
Very cool with sequencers and EGs, the trigger outs are also awesome
for firing the vactrols on the M13. This really is a fantastic
module, I'm surprised they are not more popular.

I hope to get to more videos soon, but the next two weeks are going to
be pretty busy for me. We shall see.

Doepfer Single Monster Case

Went to Santa Monica yesterday to pickup the case as well as have
lunch with Shawn and <a href="http://
noisesource.blogspot.com">Noisesource</a>.

In addition to the Tyme Sefari and A-134 and A-165 that I ordered,
Shawn easily persuaded me on a used Plan B17 and Malgo that he had,
which you can see pictured.

I also got to hear the Elby Synthacon filter which is absolutely
crazy. It sounds super mean and aggressive.

I can't wait to get this thing home and all the modules racked up.
We're driving back up Monday morning, so expect some pics late Monday
night!

AFG Harmonic Animation inputs

So, I just noticed this, otherwise I would have put this in the video,
but the PWM +/- and PPM +/- input pairs in the AFG are normalled. For
example, if you apply some voltage to PWM- in, it will also apply to
PWM+. Patching PWM+ then breaks the normalization.

Pretty handy and a great feature!
Kudos Mike!

AFG Demo Video Pt 1.

I elected to only do part of my planned demo for the AFG because, I just don't feel prepared to do it justice yet. I haven't spent as much time with it as I had the other modules before making video demos, and I don't think I could adequately show off what it's capable of.

However, what I did think I could do was to show off what most folks are interested in regarding the AFG, and that was the Anti-Matter mode and Harmonic Animation Saw/Pulse waveforms. I hooked up my $40 ebay scope and got to demoing.

[UPDATE] I forgot about YouTube's (lame) 10 minute video limitation, so I had to split "part 1" into two parts. :P

AFG Waveforms


AFG Harmonic Animation


For those who just can't wait for Pt. 2 here's a patch I worked on last night while watching the trash_audio livecast last night. It's two AFGs, one (triangle wave) FMing the other (alien saw wave) with harmonic animation being modulated by the Vulcan. The pitch is being distributed to the Exponetial inputs of each AFG via the Plan B M23 ASR, which is sampling the Ring Mod output of the Dalek Modulator. The M23 is also distributing to one of the FM inputs of the Freuquensteiner, which is also being modulated slightly by the Dual Cyclotron. The machinedrum is providing the rhythm as well as the clock for M23 ASR (using the MD's GND-IM impulse machine). The random stereo panning is provided courtesy of Ableton Live...which reminded me that I need to pickup an A-134 panning module.



I'm working on this track further for my album. This track is entitled "A Visit To The Shroud".

Enjoy.

AFGs Arrive!!!

8D

Of course they have to arrive in the morning *before* I have to go to
work!

[UPDATED]

Ok, so I played around during the day at work - shh, don't tell - and I am absolutely blown away! And, I'm pretty sure I've only just scratched the surface.

As most people have no doubt guessed, the real stand outs of the AFG are the harmonic animation features of the square and saw waves and the Matter / Anti-Matter. You no doubt have guessed what the harmonic animation sounds like (PWM on steroids) but you probably have no idea what the Anti-Matter mode does. Well, it makes it sound fucking awesome, that's what it does!!

Here's the first short demo. This is the animated square output, with the two oscillators of the Dalek in LFO mode and modulating the PWM+ and PWM- parameters (note, this is only half the parameters for harmonic animation). The start of the clip is with no modulation, and slowly I increase the CV amount for PWM- first and then PWM+. I let it get a little crazy and "bottom" out the PWM- cause I think it sounds cool. Then comes a sweep of the Frequensteiner filter. After the sweep, I engage the Anti-Matter mode. BOOM! Another filter sweep, then a quick pop back to Matter mode, and then back to Anti-Matter mode.



In this demo, we're listening to the standard square wave output. First a filter sweep, then engage Anti-Matter, then another sweep, and another quick A/B between Matter mode and Anti-Matter.



Finally here's the PWM output (yes, the PWM is separate from both the Square *AND* the Animated Square !!!). Same deal, starts with no modulation, I increase the modulation, filter sweep, Anti-Matter mode, another filter sweep, A/B Matter and Anti-Matter one more time. The PWM is absolutely sick!



Remember all of these sounds are with *A SINGLE AFG*!

So, on to a less "educational" patch. Here's the Sine outputs of each AFG into each half of the ring mod of the Dalek Modulator. The pitch changes are from the Plan B M23 Analog Shift Register. It's sampling the output of the Dual Cyclotron, clocked by Difference and Square outputs of the Vulcan modulator (I switch halfway through the patch), and each of the 4 outputs are going to the FM inputs of each AFG; one is set to Linear response, and the other Exponential on each AFG. It reminded me of a retro computer. About halfway through the clip, I start playing with Anti-Matter mode. First on the "modulator" AFG, then on the "carrier" AFG, and then finally on both.



And, at last, here's the piest de resistance. I've been into drones lately, so here's a patch I worked on throughout the day.
It's one AFG, using the Animated Saw output. Each half of the Vulcan is modulating the PPM+ and PPM- (I like these on the saw instead of the PWM+/-). The Sub Out of this AFG is set to Saw and plugged into it's own FM input, set to Exponential and adjusted just a tiny bit. This really fattens it up. I must say, I really like the FM'd saw sound on the AFG. I didn't like it at all on the M15, but I really like it here. Finally, the AFG is in Anti-Matter mode.

The "whine" sound in the clip is the Dalek modulator ring mod out, tuned to a harmonic of the first AFG. The "dry" saw part of the drone is just that...it's the second AFG tuned to the same note as the first AFG, using the Saw output. I can't remember now if it was using Anti-Matter mode, but I think it was not.

The Frequensteiner filter is being modulated by the Dual Cyclotron, both the Aux and Main outputs. Throughout the clip, you'll hear me adjust the volume of each of the sounds, the filter cutoff, and the modulation amount of the filter.



Enjoy. Video demo should be ready end of day sunday. i hope.

Substitute Rig

This is what I've been working with the last few days. It's actually
really fun to take away a bunch (in this case, like half) of your
modules and just see how well you can work with just a select few.

In this particular patch, I was getting re-aquainted with using the
Livewire Dual Bissell to smooth out the rising and falling edges of
the square waves coming from the Dalek Modulator. You can really get
some subtle timbre changes with that alone. It's like being able to
low-pass filter only parts of the waveform. Actually, that's not what
it's like, it's what it is!

Another fun thing that I was doing here was driving the sequencer
(clock) with the MachineDrum. One of the MachineDrum machines, GND-
IM, sends a simple impulse, which happens to be plenty hot enough to
function as a trigger for the modular. So I simply sequenced the
pulses in the MachineDrum and the modular locked perfectly to it.
I'll definitely be exploring that functionality more real soon.

Speaking of triggers, I've lately taken to using trigger pulses
instead of EGs to hit the M13 low pass gates. Those vactrols respond
so smoothly, you'd never know an EG wasn't used. In this patch, I'm
using two of the trigger rows from the A-155 sequencer to open each
gate on the M13.

The basics of this patch are two halves of the Dalek, processes
through the Dual Bissell, and then each half goes into each half of
the M13, which are being opened, as I mentioned, by the triggers on
the sequencer, which is being clocked by the machinedrum.

Finally, to add a bit of character, I'm taking the ring mod out of the
Dalek, gating it with a A-132 linear VCA (opened by the M10, being
triggeres by the sequencer) and processing that through the A-188-2,
and mixing it in with the main signal described before.

I'm still having some trouble with the interface, so I'll leave it
patched up until I can record it.

I'm BAAA-ACK...

...in the saddle again!

So here's the latest. I'm going to be getting a Single Doepfer Monster Case. Shawn's hooking a brotha up, as always. I'll be picking it up the weekend of August 9th, I'll be down in LA anyway, so I'll just swing by the new AH shop :D.

In the meantime, thanks to the boundless generosity of mr. bdu, I have a loaner 6U Doepfer rack to tide me over until I take delivery of the Monster Case.

Once I got it home, I immediately picked a few modules (Livewire Dalek, Vulcan, and Bissel, Plan B M13 and M10, Doepfer A-155, A-138c, A-132, A-188-2, and Harvestman Polivoks) and started in on a patch.

This was my first time with the A-188-2 and it seemed so well suited to noisy stuff, I went in that direction.

Unfortunately, I seem to be having some issues with my audio interface and can only get a few minutes of recording before it dies. This is the longest clip that I was able to get.

The sound source is the Dalek Ring Mod out, with one row of the sequencer controlling the pitch of one oscillator. That is being filtered by the Polivoks and run into the A-188-2. The Polivoks has a bit of self modulation (BP output patched to CV1) being attenuated by one half of the Vulcan and the A-132 VCA. The other half of the Vulcan is clocking the A-155 sequencer.

The A-188-2 has two outputs, each output has it's own delay tap mixes as well as overall Wet/Dry balance. One output of the A-188-2 (the noiser part of the patch) is going to half of the Plan B M13, being opened by the M10, which is being triggered by one trigger row on the sequencer. The other half of the A-188-2 is going to the other half of the M13 which is being opened directly by one of the trigger rows of the sequencer. The M13 vactrols almost make EGs unnecessary for plucky sounds.

So the intro is that second half of the A-188-2...I'm turning the mix from 100% wet to about 15% wet. Then, I slowly turn the balance on the Plan B M13 so you hear more and more of the noisy signal.

After that, it's just messing with adding triggers on the sequencer rows.

Then it cuts out >:(

I left the patch together, just in case I figure this interface problem out tonight.



Enjoy.

PS. Got Twitter? hit me up: twitter.com/jamescigler

A hero lost

Not synth related at all...but one of my heros has just died.

RIP George Carlin. You were the greatest.

Modular Cabinet Update - EPIC FAIL!

The title just about says it all.

I should have listened to that voice in my head six months ago that said "whatever you build, it's not going to be 'good enough' and you'll just be disappointed. You'll justify it by reminding yourself constantly that you saved money". That would have been mildly valid had I been able to build the case in short order...but I didn't, it's been six months since I sold my Doepfer A-100P cases. For just $150 a month during that time period would have paid for the difference of the Doepfer Monster Case.

I spent all this morning and majority of the afternoon gathering the up the final materials (of which only 80% was obtained) and started building the case. I even got some nice red oak wood normally used for kitchen cabinets and had the guys at the lumber yard cut it for me, since all I have at home is a shitty old jig saw and oak is hard shit. Oh yeah, and it was $80 of Oak so I didn't want to fuck it up.

I was able to finally find some small corner brackets that I could use for mounting the Vector rails. They would work, but they weren't perfect. A minor issue, but it bugged me.

I searched everywhere for a nice thin, but sturdy piece of wood for the back of the case. Plywood was overkill, and ugly as fuck. Even though I wouldn't see it, it just seemed wrong to screw down this shitty plywood on $80 of sweet Red Oak. Everything else was too thin and flimsy.

After driving around most of Campbell and Saratoga to all the various hardware stores (Ace, OSH, and Home Depot...the trifecta), I finally returned home and got started putting the case together.

Of course, I have no jigs or anything...not even a proper workbench, so the glueing process started to get messy. I thought, "fuck it, I'll just skip the glue...the corner brackets should be fine". Well they weren't, the case was flimsy as fuck. And, despite what looked like an extremely well planed piece of Oak, it wasn't perfect and the corner joints did not align well and there were some slight gaps/overhangs. Again, not a big deal, but it was another one of those "fuck it, it's just cosmetic" things.

At this point, the sturdiness of the thing was starting to bother me. If you would have pushed it a little hard from the side, I'm sure all the screws from the corner brackets would have ripped right out of the Oak. "Well...", I thought, once I get the module rows mounted in, that will reinforce it well. So I brought one row outside to mount in the case.

But, as I was sliding the row in, I found that the inner dimensions of the case were to small...the rails were too big by about 1/8 of an inch.

FUCK! <- I yelled this so loud, I'm pretty sure my whole neighborhood heard me. One guy thought I had drilled my hand or something.

I spent the next half an hour thinking about what would be better/easier... using the spare couple feet of Oak that I had left to replace the one side, making the case slightly too big *or* take the vector rails down to a local metal shop and get 1/8" trimmed off each one.

The latter seemed extra complicated since 1) I didn't know of a local metal shop setup for this and 2) If I fucked that up somehow, then I'd been even more set back. And, of course, it would be more downtime...the modules still wouldn't have a case.

So I opted for the former, which would make the case less sturdy (since the rails wouldn't be butted right up against the wood...the mounting bracket would make up the difference, and it would look sloppy...oh yeah and there would about 1 foot and 1/2 of extra Oak that I would have to cut with my crappy old jig saw.

After measuring twice, I made the best cut I could with the jig saw. It actually took 3 minutes to cut through 10" of 3/4" thick Oak with that fucking saw and I had to actually pause twice to catch my breath and get a grip on the saw handle. After it was done, I re-attached the side and took a step back. It looked like shit! And it wasn't level! FUCK FUCK FUCK!

"You're 90% there", I thought to myself, "just mount the rails and see how it looks". So I did, well one row anyway, which was all I had patience for. The row wasn't perfectly parallel with the front edge of the cabinet and because the mounting brackets were making up the extra space, the whole row could slip around a lot. The case was barely any less wobbly than when the rails were not mounted.

And it looked like absolute shit.

So that's it. I'm fucking done. I'm ordering a Doepfer Monster Case first thing Monday. I'm too pissed off at this point to chalk it up to a learning experience. And, the only thing I learned, if anything, is that I should listen to initial gut instinct.

So...

Now that you've read this horror story...if you are thinking of making your own cabinet, I have parts which I'd love to sell to you ;) No, seriously, the Vector Rails (including nuts and screws for the modules), the +/- 12V/15V 3A power supply, and Doepfer power bus boards are all up for sale. If you are interesting, just send me an email. I'm sure to have calmed down by then, and promise to be as helpful as I can.

james.cigler at gmail dot com

In the meantime, I'm going to hang myself... and try not to fuck it up.

Modular Case - Progress Made!

I decided that I would finally get some shit accomplished this weekend and so far, so good.

I went to the local surplus store and got the right length screws this time. They actually have Torx heads, which looks really cool compared to regular phillips head screws. I didn't go through and remove the screws for the modules that I had racked up already, but I'll do that eventually.

I racked the rest of the modules into the vector rails and stacked them up. Now all I need is to find some 90 degree angle mounting hardware for the rails and some nice looking wood to build the case. I hope to have that wrapped up this weekend too, although, the yard really needs some attention too.

The spaces in the top row are completely arbitrary, although Harvestman Tyme Sefari, Zorlon Cannon and Malgorithm will go up there somewhere, hopefully all in the very near future.

The large open space on the lower left is for the AFGs, which are due to arrive anytime now, since I've got two from the first batch. The 2nd open space, in the lower-middle is for a Plan B M14 Voltage Processor and the Livewire Chaos Computer, whenever that gets released.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. It's actually not as big as I thought it would be in terms of size, both height and depth. It should still be very portable (it's a little smaller than a Doepfer Monster Case).

Off to the hardware store!

I *LOVE* the MonoMachine

What a great way to follow up the previous post, eh?

I'm not sure what took me so long to post about it, but two weeks ago I took delivery of a MnM mkI. It's fantastic. It's just as fun (and creatively challenging) to program as the MachineDrum and the sound is very unique and punchy. I won't say I'm totally wild about the sound yet, but it definitely has some rad qualities. I'd have to say my favorite machine so far is SID (SidStation / C64 emulation) but I have barely dipped into the FM-based machines.

Since I'm still in my "Reason phase"† with it, I can't really talk much to the depth of it's functionality or my connection to it yet.
However, Jyoti Mishra (of whom I have no idea) made a very succinct post that explains my thoughts much more clearly than I could.

Check it out.

† A "Reason phase" is my term for the time period in which you have just recently purchased some piece of gear and the easiest thing for you to make with it is repetitive techno. It's named this because for the first 6 months that I had Reason, all I made was awful, repetitive, techno. :D

I fucking *LOVE* the MachineDrum

I <3 MachineDrum.

Thursday night, after a long frustrating day at work, I came home and I just needed to do something creative...I had to make some music and just relax. Since the modular is still down without a case, I fired up the MachineDrum and dug into making a pattern; something I hadn't done in a while.

I quickly started to remember why I told Surachai that it was my "desert island" piece of gear. If someone came into my studio and said "All this shit has got to go...you can only keep one" it would be the MachineDrum, and I feel this way now more than ever.

Starting off, designing a "kit" is extremely intuitive and the range of "machines" is pretty impressive. My favorites tend to be the E12 (E-Mu SP1200) and the TRX (Roland TR Series) and, of course, the ROM machines (playing stored samples). With all of these machines, you have a serious amount of tonal control; pitch, decay, filter, ring mod, sample start/end, retrigger, delay send, verb send, and more. The more you think about each machine as "tone generators" and less as "drum sounds" the more flexible the MachineDrum becomes in your hands.

Where the MachineDrum really shines though is it's sequencer. From a basic overview, the sequencer is a simple 808/909 style sequencer, with each machine in the kit having it's own track (16 in total). However, where it really takes off is with the sequencer's "Parameter Locks". At any step that is enabled to trigger a sound, you simply hold down the button for that step and tweak any of the parameters for that machine and at that step, those parameters are used. It's like super easy DAW automation; it can even be tweaked in realtime record mode. At any step, if you don't like some parameter locks, just hold down the button for the step again and click in the appropriate param knob and you clear the lock. You can use this to make accents, change filter freq, or even program melodies (have to do by ear, but possible).

It doesn't end there though, each MachineDrum kit has 16 LFOs. By default, each LFO is setup to control it's own track, but simply turing the first parameter knob allows you to assign any LFO to any track and then to any parameter on that track. There are also settings for LFO trigger/reset as well as two separate LFO waveforms with a blend between the two shapes. A couple of the LFO shapes are actually Attack-Decay envelopes, allowing to you use the LFO to program step triggered envelopes.

There's also a great Mute mode (allowing you to mute tracks while play back for performance) a realtime (vs stepped) recording mode, and all sorts of other bells and whistles. All together it makes for a damn fine music box. I feel calling it a drum machine really limits what it's capable of.

Here's the pattern I came up with Thursday night. All MachineDrum...track mutes performed live as I was recording the clip.



I'm now on the hunt for a MonoMachine. After browsing through the MnM manual, I see the same well thought out flexibility as I do with the MachineDrum. Anyone looking to off a MnM SFX-60 MKI, hit me up. Why the MKI...well cause it's gonna be cheaper, but mainly because the MKII is thinner and having it next to my thicker MKI MachineDrum would drive my OCD "fucking crazy". XD

Livewire stuff never shows up on ebay

It doesn't!

I have RSS feeds for all sorts of shit from eBay and accept for a few items at least 8 months ago, no Livewire modules have shown up on eBay. None.

I don't know what that means...it's just a passing observation. (and no the feed is not broken because I always see tons of "livewire cables").

New Plan B lineup - M21c Mini-Milton

Plan B Summer/Fall lineup
Via the Plan B list (and probably Matrixsynth too...I haven't peeked at my feeds this morning.

The new line up is seriously cool, and much more than I expected from the teases on the Plan B list. The Vector Plotter is very cool and finally gives us eurorack folk something on par with the Blacet JAG.

The 4HP ELF ADSR is also an excellent module. Especially since it has a expansion module that adds CV for each stage as well as a re-trigger. All that in 8HP is practically priceless, although, will no doubt be extremely affordable. The ELF LFO is fairly bare bones, but its range is amazing and there's no range switches! It goes from 1 cycle every 30 seconds to 10k. :D It does, however use a switch for waveforms. You can either have simultaneous Saw and Pulse or simultaneous Triangle and Square. The last ELF in the lineup is one that I've had my eye on for a while, the Analog Shift Register (ASR).

The Model 21c Mini-Milton really stole my heart though. Not only is it small (18HP), it's full featured (even has CV Direction and individual Gate outs) it's also designed in that Buchla in-a-circle style. I'm totally sold on that one.

Congrats Peter, on a job well done. Hopefully they will be available soon.

Mario Paint Composer

Holy crap! After a shitty day with no results on my overdrive prototype, this made my day:

Mario Paint Composer

I used to have Mario Paint on the Super Nintendo and this was my favorite part of the "game". I used to spend hours sequencing stuff, and back then I had no musical training/experience/anything.

I can't wait to dig into this again!!!

A days worth of nothing

Well I practically spent all of yesterday and part of this morning trying to figure out my prototype overdrive pedal doesn't fucking work. A large part of yesterday was assembly, but then the rest was trying to figure out why everything bled to ground when the input was plugged in...after about 2 hours of checking continuity between everything I realized it was because the tip connector of the jack was touching the LED bezel when a cable was plugged in, bleeding the input signal to the chassis and thus, to ground. After that, true bypass was working, but the actual overdrive circuit was not. At that point I gave up and played Rock Band for the rest of the evening. This morning, taking a look at the circuit I realized I put the transistors in fucking backwards! Since I didn't socket them, this tool about and hour to do and clean up the mess of solder. Just after that, my cheapo multimeter decided to complete stop working. Everything looks right with the circuit, but I can't check it without the multimeter. So now I can only stare at my physically represented failure thus far. My spirit is broken. Time for liquor.

The Ebb and Flow

So I know it's been a long time since I posted, so I figured I'd drop in and post something with some real substance and maybe spark a discussion, rather than post my usual "der...I've been busy" excuse post.

This post is titled 'The Ebb and Flow' because that's a syndrome I've always had with music gear. There's always a period where I can't stop thinking of enough new gear that I need. The key word is need. It's like I have some kind of physical need to some new gear otherwise I '"can't achieve some sound/project/song/etc that I want to creatively". This is the core of the oft-reported Gear Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) that so many of us music types have.

Modular synths seem to be the perfect match for this 'Ebb stage'. There's practically limitless options available, and if you decide to go with multiple formats, god help you and your bank account. It's practically never ending.

Invariably, there's some point in which this stage stops for me, and the "Flow" stage begins. I'll start to think "I now have too much gear now and I'm unable to achieve what I want with all these choices draining my workflow". Quickly, the same time and effort spent trying to acquire all this gear in the Ebb stage, is now spent trying to figure out how to trim down to the core of what I need to "get things done".

I'm at the start of the Flow stage now.

I don't know if it's because I haven't had the modular up and running again, but I'm really missing a simple selection of modules in which I have a decently flexible "instrument". That's a part of it too; I feel like I don't have an "instrument" but rather a bunch of tools that I can string together in some way. Fantastic tools yes, but a collection of tools does not make an instrument. It's difficult to master an instrument that is practically infinitely re-configurable.

Another aspect is that what really drives me creatively is limitations. I like to be presented with limitations and the opportunity to work within them to achieve what I want. I find that a satisfying challenge, both purely intellectually as well as musically.

So I know what you're thinking now, "So you're saying you want to sell all your modular stuff that you spent all that time and money acquiring?!?" No. Not quite. What I want is something I can play, something I can perform and enjoy becoming a master of. I don't want to toss aside all the modules I have, but I do want to put together some kind of small, semi-portable, modular "instrument".

Do I regret selling my Doepfer cases. One of them, maybe. Do I regret planning out this large modular case? Taking this long to wrap it up yes, but deciding to make it no.

I guess I don't know completely what I want. I guess I'm just looking to hear your thoughts...do you go through the same Ebb and Flow? Do you feel your modular is a instrument, along the lines of a guitar, or waterphone, or pan flute?

Let's hear your thoughts.

Devi Ever Master Control

While I've been *really* slow on getting it finished, this is pretty much exactly what I had been working towards with my two joysticks.



Nice job as usual Devi!!!

I hate April Fools Day.

It's sad too, because I used to love April Fools day. I used to come up with pranks and friends and I would execute them to much rejoice.

But these days, very few "real" pranks are done...you just get weird announcements or stories on the internet.

This ultimately has lead me to just not believe anything I read on the internet today [April 1st].

Take for example this info about Analogue Haven moving to a new store front:
http://www.analoguehaven.com/

Via Stretta, they [edit: Plan B] also are apparently going to turn focus away from selling individual modules and instead move to full systems.

On top of that, the place (possibly a store) moving into the now apparently vacant AH place is called NoiseBug...who are now the exclusive distributor of Plan B modules. Yes, that's right, AH no longer carries Plan B.

I'm thoroughly confused. Both are very big changes. Both have been announced on April 1st. All I can do based on these facts is assume it's a prank. I just can't trust anything on April 1st.

:/

PS. There's also new teases up from Moog and Elektron. I have reason to believe both are actually real, and not AFD pranks. Then again, who knows.